Cast
by VSSAKJ
Summary: -DISCONTINUED- Kaiba Seto is now the God of this world, because no one else could keep their head well enough postcrisis. And God has many hands, and many heads, and many, many thoughts that are not entirely his own.
1. God's Right

_(A/N: Written for an LJ community where you pair a character of choice (Kaiba Seto) with ten other characters. This is for Mokuba.)_

Kaiba Seto is not, as they say, a nice person.

Kaiba Seto is cold, ambitious, selfish, a workaholic, an asshole and, as they say, not a very nice person.

You might find one human alive to disagree with you, and that one person will be so true and honest in his conviction that you won't be able to help but believe him.

He's very hard to find, though. After half of Domino city was leveled by a missile and the other half exploded in crime and rape and gunshots and rivers of blood and mountains of corpses, he disappeared. But he didn't disappear because of these tragedies, oh no.

He disappeared because Kaiba Seto wanted him to.

Kaiba Seto did not orchestrate the attack on Domino City. Kaiba Seto did not descend from his lofty perch above humanity to do a damn thing about the chaos that erupted. All Kaiba Seto did was reach down with one hand and pluck a single person from the madness, and boxed him up and sent him away to a place that Kaiba Seto deemed safe.

Kaiba Seto remained untouched.

* * *

Mokuba found it very, very cold. He didn't know where he was – Seto had told him that to be safe, Mokuba didn't need that knowledge, he just needed to go where Seto said and not argue. Mokuba had complied; Domino city was a scary place right now, and as far as he was concerned anywhere away from it was better than being near it. 

Mokuba was fourteen, if he remembered correctly. It was hard to keep a hold on yourself in this place he was. It was cold and almost always dark – sometimes there were little lights that bobbed in front of him and sometimes, these lights spoke. He wondered if he was going crazy, the first time it happened. But then it was Seto's voice, and Seto's voice always calmed him.

"Mokuba? Can you hear me?"

Feeling foolish, the dark-haired teenager replied (to the light, as it were), "Yes, brother. Where are you? Why can't I see you?"

"It doesn't matter." Seto said curtly, as if he didn't have a lot of time, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Mokuba smiled even though he didn't know if Seto could see it, then added absently, "It's cold here."

The light faded for a moment, then warmth pulsed around him. "Is that any better?"

"Yes! How did you –?"

"It doesn't matter." Seto repeated. "I need you to do something for me. Did you study English extensively in school?"

He had. He said as much.

"Good. I need you to write me something in English." Seto went on to explain, briefly, of a style where one stressed every other syllable in a line and only had a certain number of syllables in each one. He paused only momentarily while speaking to ensure that Mokuba followed.

Mokuba wasn't stupid – he understood. "I can do it, Seto." He knew he could. It wasn't like he had anything better to do in this not-place.

"You're going to save the world, Mokuba." Was the last thing Seto said and for a moment, Mokuba thought he could feel love in his brother's voice.

Then the light was gone.

* * *

_Oh light of darkness sucking my soul in,_

_I break and softly hang my wearied head;_

_Though tears may fall no less than I deserve,_

_The salt is sweeter than I could conjure._

_Oh please just save the place that I call home,_

_And purify it with my honest words._


	2. God's Left

_(A/N: Written for an LJ community where you pair a character of choice (Kaiba Seto) with ten other characters. This is for Yami no Bakura. It'll be less confusing eventually, I promise.)_

Kaiba Seto does not believe in magic.

Kaiba Seto believes in hard work, dedication and maybe the slightest amount of cheating – just to make sure you get your way in the end.

Kaiba Seto does not take shortcuts.

But the end of the world proves to be a kind of an exception, particularly the impending end of the world. It isn't so exciting as the storybooks say; it's cold and gloomy, and kind of trudging because it just won't _arrive_. And a lot of the time, you really don't want it to arrive. Especially when you're the only one who can do anything about it and you know it.

Didn't all the weak little humans fall on their knees and pray to God whenever disaster struck?

Kaiba Seto chose to be God. And so Kaiba Seto chose also, inevitably, to answer those prayers.

* * *

"So you got the kid to write it, did you?" 

Seto did not grace Bakura with a look and gazed out the window instead, replying coldly, "Of course. He'd do anything for me." The world outside that window was dull and grey; dusty concrete shambles splashed here and there with red-brown stains and dark black hellholes. Seto turned his back on it, displeased.

Bakura was smirking. "So you can do that much – what good is it to have the spell if you can't work the magic?"

"That's why _you're_ here, isn't it?"

Bakura shrugged noncommittally; he'd never give Seto a straight answer on that point, no matter how often the taller man demanded one.

Besides, it wasn't like Seto really believed in magic anyway. But he was the only one, Bakura always reminded him, he was the only one with any chance at succeeding in this endeavour. Whatever it was supposed to be. "Who else are we waiting on?"

"Only everyone." The response was nonchalant, but Bakura quickly launched into a resume of who and where said 'everyone' was at present, "The Scythe and Sickle are both purging the useless, looking for bomb shards. They won't be back for a while." The Scythe had a way of taking heads off. The Sickle preferred to run people through, pretending like it was a sword. Their names should have been reversed.

Seto commented; Bakura ignored him. He was the only one who got away with ignoring God.

"My Star is learning from the prisoners."

Seto hated when Bakura mentioned the Star; Bakura didn't care. He always praised his Star, the only one God's hand hadn't touched.

"The little Ghost still wants to run away." Bakura smirked when he said that.

"That's enough." It was a definite command; the type Bakura didn't argue with, much as they made him smirk. "When will everything be ready?" Ascending to true Godhood… it was not the type of thing one was eager to _wait_ for.

Tick, tick, tick went the clock. Not in the room, not anywhere; time had stopped after the explosions. Or rather, time had become a perverse concept of the past, of when things made sense. Now it was just survival and destruction, life and death – light and dark. They blended too often, almost so often that no one knew the difference. So time was all relative: the longer you lived, the more time you'd had. It could be days, it could be months, it could be years; God would dictate it for you, when he could be bothered.

Which he couldn't.

"When?" Bakura chortled, then pressed his palms together in something the resembled praying, "Dear God, please grant thyself some patience while your plans come together. Homing pigeons do not fly home in a single day."

Seto, already irritated, turned and curled his long fingers around Bakura's white throat, longing for the umpteenth time to break it. But God could not do without his left hand; the secretarial hand, the one that got little to no credit but worked hard all the same. Bakura made sure he was never ignored and that Seto never forgot how important he was – how much he was _needed_.

He'd have died long before, if not. Perhaps one of the reasons he kept all the precious details close to him.

"Homing pigeons," Seto snarled, "Are primitive."

"Similar to your response to emotions." The words did not need to be choked out; Seto's fingers were not tight enough for that.

Bakura was flung away with an aggravated look. "God does not need emotions." The words were stern, and Seto was looking out the window again. Grey, and dull. It hadn't changed.

Bakura's soft laughter seemed raucous in the otherwise quiet room. "Perhaps God will see better when his Eyes return."


	3. God's Scythe

_(A/N: Written for an LJ community where you pair a character of choice (Kaiba Seto) with ten other characters. This is for Malik. I'm going to offer liner notes at the end of this story, since no amount of ficcing can explain everything in my head.)_

Kaiba Seto is not, as they say, the type of person who asks for help.

Kaiba Seto, when requiring something to be done, either completes the task himself or demands that someone else get it done immediately.

That is not to say that he is always obeyed, but Kaiba Seto tends to make threats when his word is questioned or debated. It may have to do with the God mindset. It may not.

But those selected by God to do his bidding do not always see it as a blessèd task. Their complaints are, by virtue of their own personal safety, kept to themselves, their consideration instead being focused on the fact that having something even minorly important to do is a welcome change in these days of slowly-encroaching death. Nothing to do bred only thoughts of the end, and thoughts of the end were discomfitting.

Nevermind that God's minions sometimes choose to court Death and bring her along on their questing.

Kaiba Seto knows little of Death.

* * *

Malik kicked the small, dented skull at his feet, watching with little interest as it bounced twice before clattering out of sight behind the wreck of what may have once been a car. Darkness was creeping around them and the blonde shivered slighty in spite of it being quite warm. Each day that flickered out was one step closer to the end, he couldn't help but believe. 

Laughter rippled behind him. "Frightened of the dark, brother?"

Malik turned on his heel and, still quite able to see his partner, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and flung him forward, snarling, "I already told you to stay in front of me." When the slightly taller man complied and continued walking, he went on, "And we aren't brothers."

"The best a figment of you can be is a brother, brother dear. I know your mind." Yami no Malik gave him a lurid, mocking grin before a shadowed mess of debris caught his attention and he moved towards it at a quick pace.

Malik felt a familiar rush of cold hatred, one he always felt when he was reminded that it was _his_ fault this abomination existed and for a cause that hadn't even been fulfilled yet. Nonetheless, he followed. Partners. As much as he hated being around the other, it was quite required of him; there was bond between them that hadn't been expected, but was very much present. The darkened place they'd ventured into proved to be the barebones remains of a house, a large crater about four meters in diameter and two meters deep at the center claiming the majority of what used to be the floor. All that gave away that this place had been a living space was the bloodstained arm of a couch, its stuffing strewn haphardzly across the space. Wind whistled through the collapsed walls.

Turning the chunk of furniture over to examine the underside, another thought came to Malik's mind, "I wasn't the one who gave you a body."

Yami no Malik kicked a panel of wood across the floor and hissed disconsolantly. "Some body. Imperfect skin. It shifts every day, you know, choosing where it leaves exposed." Vulnerable. Diseases were common now, hard to avoid. Yami no Malik was unable to become sick, but that did not mean his body could not rot while he used it.

"I wish someone would pitch a bomb into you, then, when your stomach's open but not your back."

Yami no Malik's eyes glittered with malice as he rounded on Malik. "Why don't you?"

"I--"

Yami no Malik interrupted him, acid in his tone, "You would if it weren't going to upset _God_, wouldn't you?"

Malik's response was bitter, recalling the hours he'd spent in Kaiba Seto's presence. "He is not God. He never will be. He will never touch God."

Yami no Malik laughed again, moving towards the sole intact corner of the room and toeing something that did not look very pleasant. "God's hand holds all the cards."

Malik turned in the other direction, his response quiet, "God's left wields all the weapons."

"We aren't loyal, are we?"

"You've never been, and I choose not to be." Malik's words were coupled with a small sigh as he kicked through the dirt on the floor, hoping for a flash of silver. Ah. _There_.

Yami no Malik laughed again and wandered into what must have been an attached room but was now little more than another half wall, singing lowly and disturbingly to himself.

Malik bent and plucked the small, very shiny bullet from the ground, and pocketed it. Not what they were seeking, but something useful all the same. It should be perfect enough to serve, if nothing else. He looked around for a moment more before finally saying, "It's night. We need to go back." He supressed another shiver as Yami no Malik responded.

The voice came not from where his partner's form had gone, but from all around. Low, eerie chuckles echoed around before words slid thickly through the air like poison, "You lead. I'll follow."


	4. God's Sickle

_(A/N: Written for an LJ community where you pair a character of choice (Kaiba Seto) with ten other characters. This is for Yami no Malik.)_

Kaiba Seto does not have patience.

Kaiba Seto, when confronted with a matter that is taking too long for his liking, loses his temper.

Kaiba Seto does not forgive.

But one thing he could, _would_ wait for was power. If it was not immediately available, it could be made so. It was being made so now; objects and spells and items and all things were slowly coming together. Slowly, certainly, but coming together. That part was what mattered, the progress.

That achingly slow progress was not unlike the lurching towards the end of the half-dead world, in the city whose name was slowly being forgotten as its population dipped closer to nothing. Nothing was everything; nothing was where the new world would start. _His_ world.

Kaiba Seto, becoming God, knew patience.

* * *

"We're still looking for the same thing? A perfect one." A scoffing sound. "Brother, we won't find any." Yami no Malik grinned at Malik over his shoulder, stepping lightly through the rubble in a different section of town from the one they'd been exploring yesterday.

Malik sounded weary; he huddled in a large oilcoat and replied with only marginal exasperation, "We aren't brothers." He'd give anything to be finished with this if _only_ so he'd be welcome to stop spending his days with Yami no Malik. He didn't even care, at this point, if he'd have to lick Kaiba Seto's fucking boots as long as he'd have _some_ peace from this creature. (Well, and he did care, but his mood was foul enough to betray him.)

"You say that every day, but it does not change--"

"Yes, I know." Malik snapped irritably, "We're still looking for bomb shards." That was all. That was _it_.

Yami no Malik smirked. "Bodies"

"... What?" Malik finally looked up to him, his gaze suspicious.

"That's what we're really supposed to find." Yami no Malik grinned again; the expression was awesomely gruesome with skin covering only half of his skull. "He thought you were too squeamish to know."

Malik stiffened. "They did, or you?"

"You cried when you first crawled out of God's bed." Yami no Malik's tone was accusing, knowing -- he was only out to win the argument, and there was no sympathy in his words.

"You've never been forced!" Malik snarled; Yami no Malik had no _form_ at night, he couldn't possibly understand how _revolting_ that man was, "He's like _ice_!"

Yami no Malik's grin crept back, the expression secretive. "I did last night."

Malik blanched before he stumbled to false confidence, "Impossible. You dissipate."

"I had enough will to drive a knife through his hand." Yami no Malik said delicately, though the words masked a pure venom Malik could feel in his own blood.

"... You never said."

"Secrets, brother, secrets. You have yours and I have mine"

Malik's mind wandered to the days he'd spent in the rooms in the basement, the one that smelled of old poison and the one where Ryou Bakura now lived (the only room where God did not dare to tread); he changed the subject, "_God_ said bomb shards."

"The left said bodies." As if that statement was enough to complete the argument, Yami no Malik moved on, continuing his haunting song from the previous day. Malik shook his head and tugged the hood of the coat back over his head as the rain started up again; he wasn't about to disobey the direct orders he'd received (much as it irked him to submit to them) but Yami no Malik... and Yami no Bakura... he didn't trust either of them, but he trusted Yami no Bakura the least.

Which meant that Yami no Malik was likely telling the truth.

They were both surprised, some time later, when a man stumbled out of an alley they were walking past. The man was short, half the hair sheared off his head, and foaming at the mouth – clearly mad. He went for Malik, clutching at his jacket's collar and babbling, "Are you from the tower? You people are, you both are!" He caught sight of Yami no Malik's face, half bone, and shied away somewhat, though without loosening his grip on Malik's front. He cried out loudly, angrily, "Demon! Demon!" He turned back to Malik, seeming desperate even as the Egyptian shoved him backwards, "Bring us light! Saviours, harbringers! We want our future returned to us! Where is my son? Oh let him live in your oasis!"

He went on, now speaking only to the air and the building in the distance where Seto's headquarter's were, which the man kept referring to as the tower. Yami no Malik wandered away from him, though not far, no longer singing and with an irritated expression on his face. Malik watched him warily, eventually asking, "What are you doing?"

Yami no Malik had stooped and chosen a palm-sized chunk of concrete from the ground, now rising with it clutched in his hand. He grinned in that same disturbing way as he had previously and walked back over to the man without answering Malik. He kicked the man in the knee and then the ankle, causing him to scream and then fall over, writhing and still screaming about Yami no Malik being a demon. The man was not unlike an insect, Malik reflected, annoying and more than useless. There weren't even flies left in the city to rot the bodies of the dead.

Yami no Malik placed on hand in the man's mouth and raised the bit of concrete over his head with the other. Malik turned his head as Yami no Malik brought the concrete down in a swift striking motion. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he saw the man's legs spasm, then twitch, then, after another sickening splat of concrete against wetness, go still. The rain, now falling more heavily, made it so the blood ran and pooled around Malik's boots not unlike a stream might; he looked up at the darkening sky, and sighed again. "You expect me to carry it, don't you?"

Yami no Malik's laughter was as disturbing as it ever was, "Squeamish, brother?" 


End file.
